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A creative business blog for PORTRAIT photographers
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Photography Business Strategy Blog
Update Your Photography Branding
If you’re thinking about rebranding simply because you no longer like the way your font looks or are just bored with the look of your logo, then it’s time to slow down and reconsider. Dramatic changes to your brand just because you feel like spicing things up can create a really big mess. Keep in mind that just because you’re bored with your logo doesn’t mean everyone else is.
The first question to ask yourself is why do you want to rebrand?
Target Bombs with the Boutique Concept: New Brand Marketing
What you have, as a small business that delivers unique, hard-to-find, specialty products and services is so good that the big guys are now copying you.
Small Business Blog: Making Customer Experience Your Advantage
Earlier this week, I shared 4 tips for overcoming mistakes in your small business. And I promised to go into this topic a bit more later this week, specifically giving examples from Simplicity Sofas, a company we featured in our recent New York Times best-selling book, Worth Every Penny, because of the personalized service they provide to customers.
Small Business Blog: How To Overcome Mistakes
Like it or not, sticky situations happen all the time when you’re a small business owner. And when they do, they create the perfect opportunity for you, as a boutique business, to step up. Think about it. If you can overcome a negative situation with a customer, you take that customer beyond basic satisfaction. Now they’re not displeased—they’re thrilled.
Marketing Help For Boutique Businesses
When you’re a boutique business, your marketing efforts must be boutique as well. Boutique marketing is focused on reaching customers who aren’t price sensitive, customers who want and appreciate all the extra things you do to make their lives better. Your marketing materials need to scream, “You’re the most important part of our day!” Discounters are focused on reaching large numbers of people who are motivated by low prices. The way they market can attract lots of customers. But it doesn’t appeal to people who want the high-touch experiences.
Marketing Help: Is Your Website Worth Every Penny?
How important is it as a boutique business to have something tangible to hand a prospective client that gives them an immediate impression of your business rather than saying you should check out my website (when you get home and hopefully you remember me when you are in front of your computer)? No matter how great your website is (which it should be fabulous), as a boutique business you need to do the unexpected.
People expect you to hand them a business card. They expect you to maybe have a brochure to hand them. They expect you to say “Go check out my website.” What they don’t expect is for you to hand them a mind-blowingly creative marketing piece. We suggest creating one (yes, we said just one) marketing piece that becomes the “This is who we are” establishing piece. We would rather you use your budget to create that one wow piece than waste funds on a sad little template postcard or other mass advertising effort. When you can afford to do a second activity really well, then add that.
How To Avoid Discounting Your Photography
There may be slow times in your business when you think the only way to attract clients or generate transactions is to offer a discount. But we challenge you to an alternative that is better than discounting—adding value to your existing offerings.
In your business, you can more readily attract the right clients by adding a value-added incentive when your clients make a purchase. For example, you might offer a free body-sloughing treatment when clients purchase a full day at the spa. Or you could develop a loyalty program that gives your clients an incentive to return to you, maybe even more often than they typically would. This could be anything from a free gift with purchase to a special service to an extension of their service.
This value-added strategy focuses on rewarding your clients when they spend more versus discounting the product before they’ve made an investment. By doing this, you keep your entire margin and you aren’t devaluing your brand to your clients. They are motivated to purchase because of the extra incentive you are offering.
Worth Every Penny Online Video Launch Party
Where do you look for new ideas to perk up your business when you’re in a rut? Sure you can find great things from industry leaders who are top of their game but once you, too, become a master in your industry, how do you keep innovating?
Is Your Small Business Worth Every Penny?
After two years of planning, writing and frankly hemming and hawing about whether we wanted to do this or not, our soon-to-be-released book, Worth Every Penny: Build a Business That Thrills Your Customers and Still Charge What You’re Worth, has finally arrived. And while that’s obviously exciting for us, what’s more important is how this book can help you. And even if you don’t read the book, what can you take away from the model Sarah used to build one of the most profitable boutique photography studios in the country?
Regardless of what industry you compete in, this model can work for any small business. In fact, in the book we share 31 different businesses from a variety of industries – from home construction to online retail, printing services, real estate, restaurants, higher education, a comic book company, salons and spas and more who are putting this model into practice and reaping the rewards.
It all starts with five key ingredients you must get right in your business that enable you to create more value for your offerings so that price is no longer a sticking point with your clients.
Photography Studio Tour: Is This the Coolest Studio in the World?
I’m doing a giddy happy dance because I get to share the coolest boutique photography studio tour of my new studio for Sarah Petty Photography in Springfield, Illinois. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bo6QJXAwxE When I started looking for the first place to call my...
The Photography Business Model That Generated $3 Million In Sales
I almost got stuck with a career I hated when I said goodbye to my 8-5 ad agency gig 21 years ago and opened Sarah Petty Photography. Luckily I got out of the wrong photography business model before it was too late. I didn’t have to suffer through a lifetime of...
High School Senior Photography – Should You Change Your Session Pricing?
Do you need to change your sessions for high school senior photography? YES! Here's the thing... The big difference between your normal family sessions and high school senior portraits is the amount of time you spend with them. I remember when I first started doing...
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